The History of King George the Third. Horace Walpole
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Название: The History of King George the Third

Автор: Horace Walpole

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

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isbn: 4064066393397

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СКАЧАТЬ in power, property, and credit were beyond comparison the preponderating part of the nation, took every occasion of displaying their old prejudices and resentments. On every contested election they acted in a body against the old Whigs, or later converts, however attached to the Court. Thus they exerted all their interest against Lord Gower173 and Lord Orford174 on election-causes, and against the Duke of Bridgwater175 and Lord Strange, on a bill for a new northern navigation—points, on every one of which the Tories were rancorous and unsuccessful. Nor was Scotland wiser. One Haldane had stood for Bridport, lost it, and petitioned. Sir Henry Erskine, a creature of the Favourite, had the indecency and folly to call the English party in the House of Commons a profligate majority; an offence not forgotten, though the Scots were beaten by three to one. The inconsiderable number that in either House of Parliament adhered to Mr. Pitt, and the almost universal acquiescence to the Favourite’s influence, persuaded both him and his dependents, that they had but to give the tone, and prerogative would master all opposition. Nor did his partisans do more than was practised by the Favourite himself. If they insulted the nation, he ruled the Court with a rod of iron. The Queen, her brother, and the brothers of the King, were taught to feel their total want of credit. The Duke of York, as Lord Anson was dying, ambitioned the post of Lord High Admiral, but did not dare even to ask it. Prince William,176 the favourite brother of the King, wished also to be employed abroad, and ordered Legrand,177 his governor, to solicit Lord Bute for a command. The haughty Earl treated Legrand with scurrilous language for putting such things into the Prince’s head. The Duke of York, who, though the elder, was by far the more indiscreet of the brothers, openly expressed his resentment and contempt of Lord Bute and the Scotch; and as a mark of disobedience, went to a hunting party at the Duke of Richmond’s, to which he had been invited with the Prince of Mecklenburg; but the latter was not suffered to go to a disaffected house in disaffected company.

      But while inactivity reigned in the Parliament of England, that of Ireland was not idle. Lord Halifax,178 their new Lord-Lieutenant, was, like most of his predecessors very popular at first. They voted him an additional salary of four thousand pounds a year. He had the decency, though very necessitous, not to accept it for himself, but desired it might be settled on his successors. The House of Commons, however, would not wait till it should take place, to pay themselves, but passed a vote to make their Parliaments, which existed during the life of each King, septennial. The party attached to the Castle179 voted for it, concluding it would be thrown out by the Lords. The Lords, as provident for their popularity, thinking it would be rejected in England, passed it likewise. It was rejected here, but not without much disposition in some of the Council to have it granted. Lord Hilsborough,180 who had great weight with Lord Halifax, stayed with him in Dublin, and openly made war on the Primate;181 while William Gerard Hamilton,182 the Secretary, gained such applause in that Parliament, that a motion for augmenting the troops was carried by the sole power of his eloquence.

      March 19th, the bill for continuing the militia for seven years was passed by the House of Commons in England; and the counties, that had not raised theirs, were ordered to pay five pounds a man. This was settled by a compromise, lest a longer term should be insisted on. Its own friends were sick of it, and had clogged it with many clauses, in hopes it would be rejected by their opponents. But the Ministers would not risk the unpopularity of a negative, and were even afraid to part with so large a body of men.

      CHAPTER X.

       Table of Contents

      Conquest of Martinico.—War in Portugal.—Lord Tyrawley.—Count la Lippe.—The Cock-Lane Ghost.—Pacific disposition of the new Czar.—His Popular Measures.—Count Schouvalow.—Meditated War with Denmark by the Czar and the King of Prussia.—Insurrections in Ireland, quelled by the Earl of Hertford.—Lord Bute’s Ambition.—The Duke of Newcastle.—His friends.—The Portuguese War, and the War in Germany.—The Duke of Bedford.—Fox’s Observation to Walpole.—Lords Mansfield, Hardwicke, and Lincoln.—Newcastle’s tenacity of Power.—Creation of seven new Peers.—Private negotiation with the Court of Vienna.—The new Peers.—Buckingham House purchased by the Queen.—Seclusion of the King and Queen.—the King’s younger Brothers.

      On the 22nd of March arrived news of the conquest of Martinico by General Monckton183 and Admiral Rodney:184 a plan ascribed by the people to Mr. Pitt, though executed under the auspices of the Favourite. In truth, the valour of the nation had taken such a bent, that Lord Bute could not check it: nothing but a peace could chain it up. If the Earl did favour any part of the war, it was that in Portugal. Colonel Burgoyne185 was ordered thither with five thousand foot and six hundred horse; and there was a plan for regimenting twenty-five thousand papists in Ireland for the same service; but the Irish Government did not approve of giving discipline and arms to such dangerous inmates. For General-in-Chief, it was proposed to send to Lisbon the Prince of Bevern. He had been suspected of infidelity by the King of Prussia,186—had been disgraced, and his intellects were not reckoned sound. Lord Tyrawley sent home his aides-de-camp, affecting to wonder that we expected any invasion of Portugal. This was imputed to his disgust at not obtaining the command himself; he who was a brave and old general, and who was perfectly acquainted with the country.187 The Prince of Bevern declined the offer; and Count la Lippe accepted it. He was born in England, had distinguished himself in every hussar-kind of service, and in his dress and manners copied Charles XII. of Sweden, though with more politeness. He found the Portuguese troops in the most deplorable state of cowardice and want of discipline. The English could not, and did not disguise their contempt of them. The Spanish army might have marched to Lisbon, had they met with no obstruction but from the natives. The English troops saved that country; and Count La Lippe, before he left Portugal, formed a regular army there.188

      The facility which the Favourite found of mastering so great and victorious a kingdom, and of removing the man who had carried the glory of his country so high, was not the only evidence, that however enlightened an age may be, knavery and folly need never despair. The tares they sow will shoot amidst any harvest. Will it be credited that, while the Romish superstition was crumbling away even in Spain and Portugal, a set of enthusiastic rogues dared to exhibit in the very heart of London, a pantomime of imposture, which would hardly have been swallowed in a paltry village of Castile? The methodists had endeavoured to establish in Warwickshire, not only the belief, but the actual existence of ghosts. Being detected, they struck a bold stroke, and attempted to erect their system in the metropolis itself. A methodist family, at first out of revenge, endeavoured to fasten on one Parsons the imputation of having debauched and murdered his wife’s sister. A young girl was reported to be visited by the deceased, whom she called Fanny, and with whom she established a correspondence of question and answer—not by words, but by scratching. A certain number of scratches signified “yes;” another number, “no.” At first this farce, which was acted in Cock-lane, in the city, was confined to the mob of the neighbourhood. As the rumour СКАЧАТЬ